


Scars We Carry with Memories

by wordsmithraven



Series: When it Comes to Us [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Romance, Sensuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 13:23:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12081915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsmithraven/pseuds/wordsmithraven
Summary: After the seventh night of their week long hook ups, Jace wakes in Maia's apartment to see something that shocks him and stirs up feelings he's been struggling with for longer than just the previous few days.





	Scars We Carry with Memories

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a damned long time, huh?
> 
> Just as an update, I finally found a new job after my months long desperate search. I've been working hard for the past month and a half. I haven't had time to write much since the position is so hectic and stressful. I also stalled a little on "Child of the Heart" after parts of the latest chapter weren't quite working. I've got half of it done but I think I need to go back and do some re-writes.
> 
> I worked on this and a couple other things in the meantime. Hopefully work will even out soon and I can write more consistently. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy this Jaia oneshot. I wrote it while thinking of the fact that the TV show's writers forgot their timeline in S2 enough that they basically implied that Jace and Maia hooked up for a solid week. I've decided to run with the plot hole and expand it into a burgeoning romance. lmao
> 
> This story slots into place just before episode 2x14 and before A Little Bit More than Nothing. I've decided to combine these Jaia oneshots into a loose series.
> 
> I debated on the rating but they only cuss a few times and they don't have explicit sex so Teens it is...
> 
> Let me know what you think. Bye!

Maia rarely let him at her back. Jace could probably count on one hand the number of times she had voluntarily done so, and he could still cut off a couple fingers.

It was a little before dawn when Jace woke half startled out of some nightmare that he couldn’t quite remember. His heart was racing and he’d tensed up hard, but the edges of the dream were already dissolving like smoke from a dying cigarette. His hand was aching.

He had woken on his back. In the dim moonlight of the pre-morning darkness, he could just make out the peeling paint chips of a ratty apartment ceiling. He looked down to find that most of his body was covered by a thin cotton sheet printed with flowers. He had a brief second of confusion before he felt someone shift at his side and Jace remembered where he was.

He was at Maia’s. The seventh night since that explosive first. Neither of them had intended to let it move beyond that one night stand but here they were. That second night a case had brought him back around to the Hunter’s Moon. Then the third night she had been at Magnus’ place at the same time as Jace. Then the fourth night Simon, of all people, had treated everyone to dinner at a pizza shack. Then the _fifth_ night…

Jace snorted softly.

He couldn’t kid himself. They were all excuses, really. Not a damn one of those scenarios had needed to end with them sweaty and naked. That was all them.

Well, most of it was _him_.

Jace was the one chasing, always tossing out a flirty comment and wondering if Maia would pick it up or throw it to the ground. It was a fifty-fifty chance either way but Jace had recently discovered that even if Maia cut him down after his antics, she still had to bite back an exasperated half smirk over them. It was a sign that she liked him in spite of herself and Jace had latched onto that little bit every time, leading them both to each other far more frequently than he’d planned.

After waking from his nightmare, Jace’s mouth was dry, his eyelashes were crusted, and his right leg was asleep from having it bent beneath his other one. The nightmare had chased away any relaxation points he had racked up from sex with Maia the night before, which was a damned shame because it had been a great night of sex.

It had started off their usual way: a little rough, a little tumble, and Maia pinning him still while she rode him. After the second round of frantic activity, though, everything had slowed down. Maia didn’t like seeing his shadowhunter gear so Jace had decided not to use his stele on his rejuvenation and stamina runes to give himself a quick jumpstart. Instead, they had spent time just touching each other, fingers tracing gently over skin.

Maia had even let him press soft kisses over her body until their touching had grown into Jace actually being allowed to have sex with Maia while she was on her back.

It was a new position for them and Jace had savored every moment, drawing it out softly and achingly until they’d both released a third time that night. The movies would’ve called it “making love” but Jace knew he’d likely get a smack to the mouth if he dared say those words out loud, so he’d decided to keep his thoughts to himself.

Jace rolled his head to the left on the silk pillow beneath him. The street lamp outside of Maia’s third story window threw a shaft of light across Maia’s bare back. It was rising and falling slowly with her breathing and her brown skin looked like a tawny gold in the yellow, artificial light.

Jace rolled to his side carefully, trying not to wake Maia. He propped his head up on his hand and just watched her sleep. She had rolled onto her front. One arm was bent up under her head and the other flopping over the edge of the bed, shielding her hand from his sight.

Her silk hair bonnet was pulling off her head and a few curls had escaped from its elastic band. Jace remembered the first night when she’d pulled the thing from her nightstand. He’d laughed in confusion while watching her arrange her hair in the bonnet while stark naked. She’d growled before threatening to kick him out if he had any other unasked for comments about her hair necessities. He had quickly zipped his lips and hadn’t opened them about the topic since.

Now, the end of a runaway curl just touched the edge of the lamplight on her neck and the composition of it drew his eye immediately. His shadowhunter senses were just sharp enough naturally that he could make out a faint white circle just behind where Maia’s shoulder met her neck. In fact...

Jace narrowed his eyes and shifted closer. He inhaled softly. It was a scar. A scar sitting in the exact same position as the place where Maia had been chipped a week before.

Jace’s chest constricted and his hands clenched at the memory. Then he made a slow motion to trace the mark with a single fingertip. Guilt twisted his insides and made his lips tremble so he pressed them together.

Just as he’d pulled his hand away from Maia she was shifting herself, breath stuttering as she woke. Her shoulders hunched up and her legs straightened as she stretched. She let out a long exhale and then relaxed back into place, still on her stomach with her face turned away from him.

“What time is it?” she asked. Her voice was rough with sleep and she smothered a yawn with one hand.

He was silent, still caught in a whirl of his own thoughts. This was the first time he had seen such a thing. It hadn’t been there when he’d taken the chip out. He knew that. Then he realized Maia had not let him at her back since then. Not once during any of their hook ups.

Jace adjusted his shoulders uneasily. It could’ve been caused by something else, he reasoned. Despite his simplistic rationalization, however, every instinct told him that the scar and the chip were related.

“Jace? Did you hear me? I asked what time it was,” said Maia. She sounded confused and just on the verge of irritation. “I know you’re awake. I can hear your heart pounding faster than a rabbit’s. Answer me.”

Maia had just started to roll over, looking back over her shoulder to face him. Jace stopped her with one hand on her shoulder blade, thumb sliding up to the place where the faint scar was raised on her otherwise silky skin.

“This,” he started. “What is this?”

Maia tensed. Jace didn’t know whether it was out of shock or confusion. The muscles beneath his palm constricted even harder as the silence between them stretched.

“What’s what?” she tried to deflect. Jace wouldn’t let her do it and pressed on.

“This scar. Where did it come from?”

Jace knew the answer but he needed to hear it out loud for some reason. Some masochistic part of him needed to hear Maia make his frightening thoughts real. He held his breath, waiting.

“It’s from the chip.”

Jace blew out the breath he was holding, eyes falling closed. He pulled his hand away from Maia’s shoulder and rolled away from her onto his back. The mattress shifted as she moved a few seconds later.

She huffed. “Is this going to be a thing? Because I’m not sure if this is a conversation I feel like having right now.”

Jace grabbed at the sheets covering his waist, rolling a few folds beneath his fingers and his hands curled tight.

“It’s not a thing. I j-...it’s not a thing.”

The words came out more haltingly than he had been shooting for. He cleared his throat in an attempt to recuperate but couldn’t think of anything else to add in order to change the subject.

The silence stretched on.

The bed shook as Maia seemed to flop down. Jace opened his eyes, catching them on the cracks in the ceiling once more.

“Does it bother you?” Maia asked.

Jace flicked his eyes over quickly and saw that she had flipped over onto her back to stare up at the ceiling along with him. Her breasts were bared and pulling to the sides while the sheet that covered both Maia and Jace had pulled down to her waist. Her hands were clasped over her stomach and her face was serene.

“It should,” she continued, voice darting out like a dare. “It definitely bothers the fuck out of me. Despite the last few nights, I’m still royally pissed off at you. Your grandma and the Clave, too.” Her fingers tapped a rhythm.

Jace turned away. The knife of his guilt twisted deeper in his gut. Bile roiled up his throat but he swallowed it down. He tried a few breathing exercises to get his pounding heart under control but it didn’t feel like it made a difference.

“H- how? It wasn’t there last week.”

He felt Maia shrug. “Something in the chip. I got it checked out three days ago. Catarina Loss said the Clave probably used a silver and electrum compound with the components. The chip was in me just long enough to cause a reaction and scar over despite my werewolf healing.”

Maia shifted on the bed, adjusting her bonnet and tucking her curls back in.

“I guess I can be thankful it hasn’t become a fucking keloid.”

Jace bit at his lip hard. A sudden burst of copper in his mouth let him know he’d broken the skin. Maia inhaled sharply the moment he tasted blood and he knew she could smell it on the air.

She sucked at her teeth. “Jesus, Jace. You’re not the first man to leave a mark on me. You’re not even the first man I’ve fucked to leave one on me.”

When the words finally registered, every muscle in his body drew up tight.

Jace had had a darkness in him for a long time, pure angel blood notwithstanding. When he’d been adopted by the Lightwoods, he had locked it away for the most part. Before recent months, he’d been largely able to keep it hidden, only showing that rage in him in random bouts of vengeance against the Circle and demons.

The same part that he tried hard to keep locked in had found a kindred spirit in Maia. Some echoing darkness that called to the part of him that spiraled out of control at the very mention of his f-...of Valentine.

Still, Maia’s words uncomfortably surprised him.

It wasn’t that Jace had never suspected that Maia had a rough past. No one with her immediate style of volatility had a normal, apple pie background. Still, Jace had assumed most of it was the general explosive nature of being a werewolf. In hindsight, that was probably Valentine’s childhood lessons talking more than anything.

Maia and Jace never really talked about her past. They’d known each other for only a couple months, hated each other for most of it, and had only started hooking up in the previous few days. Maia didn’t owe him shit about her past and he knew it. She knew it. She was all business with him usually. They met up--accidentally or otherwise--they fucked, and they said goodbye in the morning. Simple.

This latest hook up-turned-lovemaking session had been the first break in what was already becoming a routine for them. This conversation was likewise the first time they’d ever skirted around a more personal topic than general talk about current events in the Shadow World. This was uncharted territory for him.

So, an ex. An ex who’d apparently scarred her.

Jace turned his head to look at her, eyes immediately catching on the scars on her neck. He had a brief second to wonder if he was mistaken, then Maia reached up a hand to brush her fingers over the claw marks and he knew he’d guessed correctly.

The scars were on the opposite side from him, so he could only glimpse the edges of them as they curled around Maia’s throat. They were large and jagged, covering the entirety of the left side of her neck. Jace could imagine the horrific wound they would have been when freshly made. It was a miracle that Maia had survived at all.

He’d focused on those scars the very first time he had ever met Maia. She left them displayed for all the world to see, after all. Jace wondered idly why she left them so, but a second later he understood. They weren’t so much a badge of honor, more a badge of survival: _I made it through everything you did to me. I am not ashamed._

Jace’s right hand trembled and he rubbed firmly at slightly bent ring finger.

Maia darted a quick glance over to him and found him still looking at her.

“Nothing to say, Jace? You usually got a smart aleck remark for everything.”

There were a lot of things people said at times like this. _I didn’t know. I should have known. I’m so sorry. That piece of shit. Is he dead? Do you want him to be?_

Jace knew from experience that none of those things would be what Maia wanted to hear right then. All of them were equal parts patronizing and insufficient. So he settled on, “Not all the time.”

Then he kept his eyes steady and his mouth shut, waiting for her to speak.

Maia scoffed and turned back to look at the ceiling. She pulled the sheet up to cover her chest, her knuckles lightening to a pale cream with her grip on the cloth.

After a few long minutes, she reached back up to touch her neck again.

“He was just some shitty ex. Some prettyboy, edgy guy who made me feel- Made me-” She broke off, voice wobbling. She gave a growl to firm her tone and continued. “It’s the same story a bunch of girls have...and some guys too, I guess. Typical.”

She shrugged, shifting the pillows near her shoulders, and pressed her lips together.

“It’s not typical,” he said back. The words spilled from his mouth before he could think about what he was saying.

Maia sneered. “Why? Because it ended with me choking on my own blood during a full moon, and then a gnarly wolf transformation a month later?”

Jace shook his head. “No. Because he shouldn’t have done it in the first place.”

Maia rolled her eyes and shifted away from him.

Jace sighed. “I won’t insult you by pretending I know exactly what you went through. It would be even worse after what I did to you last week. But I know the deal. Pretending like what happened was ‘typical’ or ‘nothing’ just leads to letting people make excuses for it, even yourself. And once you do that...”

He was quiet for a moment, lost in faded memories.

He remembered how he had felt when he’d given in to his fears and let Valentine’s twisted words make him feel twisted inside too. He thought about when he’d gone back to Valentine after Jocelyn had shot the man with an arrow. For a tiny moment Jace had wondered if Valentine had been right after all, that all of his mind games and lies really _had_ been to help Jace become better.

He remembered the sick feeling he’d had after that thought too. The roiling in the pit of his stomach that he would even dare to believe such an obvious manipulation. But maybe it _was_ true…

On and on, Jace’s mind had constantly circled until he hadn’t known what was right from wrong and what was up from down. He had made mistakes with that kind of mindset, not the least of which was letting his newly found grandmother talk him into tagging downworlders like animals. Like pets, as Maia termed it.

Jace could almost laugh. Valentine would have loved the Jace he’d been a week ago. Finally, the man would have had a son he could’ve been _proud_ of.

“Then he wins,” he finished softly and grimaced.

Maia was quiet for so long he had to check if she’d fallen asleep. She was looking at him and when he met her gaze, she scanned her eyes over his face and down his torso to where he had just realized he was massaging his hand again.

“You’ve really been through it, huh?” she finally said. She was smirking.

Someone else--someone who didn’t understand--might have been shocked or even offended at her smile. But Jace wasn’t like those other people. He was like Maia, and Maia was like him.

He snorted, thinking about his recent behavior. “I’m still going through it. Apparently.”

Maia laughed out loud. “You should be on one of those reality talk shows like Maury: ‘My Daddy Made Me a Prejudiced Asshole.’ Make a boatload of money.”

Jace smirked. “Are you going to be the mid-show, special guest reveal? ‘Meet the Woman Who Made Him Change.’”

Maia broke off her laugh and leaned up on her elbows, the sheet barely managing to stay over her. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was gaping.

Jace froze. “What?”

Maia’s gape pulled into a smile. “Oh my god, you watch trashy, daytime television.”

Jace twisted his mouth in denial and shook his head. Shit.

“Don’t give me that. You know exactly how those shows go. I didn’t know shadowhunters even watched TV.”

Jace shut his eyes and groaned, knowing the jig was up. He flopped back down onto his back.

She let out a peal of laughter. “Jace effing Herondale is basically a middle-aged, house mom. Wow! Learn something new every day.”

Jace rolled his eyes. Sometimes he left the TV on while he trained in his room during the day. It wasn’t a big deal. So what if he occasionally stopped training to watch mundanes try to find the most shocking stories they could on national television? It was funny. He didn’t have to explain himself.

“Okay, what else do you watch? Judge Judy? Murder She Wrote?” She gasped. “ _Soap operas?_ ” she exclaimed.

Jace smiled and gave a playful groan. “Alright, alright. That’s enough. We all have deep, dark secrets, okay?”

She laughed for a little while longer, rolling back down to lie beside him. The bed jiggled every time she tried to hold in a giggle and failed. He rolled his eyes again.

Still, her laughter was better than the alternative. The atmosphere was much lighter than it had been only minutes before. Jace would take that over scraping at their painful memories.

They laid there basking in the fading laughter for a long time. So long that the edge of morning started to creep through Maia’s lace curtains, birds started twittering outside, and the yellow street lamp finally cut off. In an apartment below them, Jace heard the sound of an alarm clock. It was dawn.

“The scar,” Maia started to say. She reached up. Not to touch her claw marks but to curl fingers over her shoulder to where the little circle was left from the chip applicator. “I can’t say I’m not still angry over all of it. I am. But you’ve made your amends and there’s no going back. It’s done.”

Guilt rushed through him again. Maia’s words were far more forgiving than he deserved. He knew better than to voice his guilt out loud at that moment however. This wasn’t about him and he wouldn’t make it that way.

So he nodded to let her know he understood her and left it at that. He could work out his own damage on his own time.

“Besides,” she continued. “We’re having regular sex after all of that, so that’s got to mean something.”

Jace was shocked into a laugh and Maia tumbled after him. Her flippant comment was exactly the type he could’ve expected from her. Especially then. They weren’t nearly close enough for anything more. So he let Maia steer the conversation into lighter and more detached territory, content to get that little bit of vulnerability that he could and savoring it.

When Jace finally made it back to the Institute, he’d had a sudden urge to play the piano. Despite how everything had ended with Maia that morning, the conversation had still brought up a lot of memories he had been struggling with recently. They lurked in his dreams like an oily residue in a polluted lake.

As he played, Jace wondered if Maia had her own piano routine. Did she have her own painful reminder of a past that she couldn’t quite escape? Was it the scar on her neck? Some token or thing or activity he wasn’t privy to at all? He wanted to know more, if she would let him.

Ever since he had met her, Maia had made him feel a lot of things, most of them contradictory. Fear, anger, thankfulness, guilt, amusement, desire. That night and the morning after had revealed another emotion growing inside him. A need to be closer, to learn more...maybe even to reveal more of himself. He had not quite put a name to the feeling, but he thought he would soon. He would just have to spend more time with Maia and figure it out.


End file.
